Our Hands Are Full But We're Not
by Mlle Shiow Jen
Summary: After Troy's fall, some of the immortal survivors must learn to survive. For even the gods must mourn including those who had once been mortal. (Mainly Aphrodite and Ganymede, with cameos from Zeus and Xanthos Scamander. Eros and Psyche also mentioned.)


On earth there were screams and the wailing of women. A city once favored by the King of the Gods himself now lay in ruins, its streets littered with the bodies of men and children. The women were of course spared so they might be kept for their conquerer's pleasure. Prizes to bear their bastards. Theirs was the cry of the dead who are forced still to live.

And high in heaven there were the cries of a boy. A boy who like those poor unfortunate women below was a kept prize. Only he was for a god, not a conqueror. His father had founded that ruined city, his brothers had made it one of the great City-States of the ancient world. And now it lay in ruins, all because of a botched beauty contest.

* * *

"How long will I have to endure his crying?" Zeus growled from his throne. Aphrodite stood nearby, a surprisingly modest black gown wrapped around her. She too had loved Troy and its princes, one she had given a son and another who had given her the golden apple that had set off the war.

"Perhaps you wouldn't have to if you had made it clear to the Trojans they needed to return Helen to the Greeks, _Father_." In the shadows of the columns behind Aphrodite stood another god, Xanthos Scamander. A minor river deity at best but one who's river had been integral to Troy's flourishing. He himself had always taken a vested interest in the city acting as soldier and counselor to her kings when needed.

Zeus gave his shadowed son a dangerous look. "Are you questioning my judgement on this matter?" He asked coldly. For an outsider this exchange might have passed for comical. Zeus looked young, a man in his prime, golden haired like the sun and blue eyed like his sky. But Xanthos looked so much older, black hair streaked with gray a face worn like leather.

"Not at all, only perhaps you might wish to remember the betrayals," Xanthos' eyes glanced over to Aphrodite who's tear-stained eyes narrowed at him, "And losses you yourself have endured." He added looking back at his ageless father.

Zeus was tempted to strike him down for questioning him. After all the disobeying of his orders during the war he was in no mood for even the slightest jibes at his authority. But he liked this son of his, if only because he accepted his place as merely a minor deity instead of reaching for more. "And what would you suggest I do then?"

Xanthos looked away from his father's gaze. "He will need time, I suggest you find other distractions for your bed. He is friends with Eros, yes?"

"Eros has been busy with his own interests of late," Aphrodite interrupted. Cracked though it may have been by her own crying her voice still hit Zeus and Xanthos like an intimate caress. It was the voice of love itself, just as Zeus' was that of authority and the skies and Xanthos was that of a rushing river.

The river god breathed in sharply, taking a moment to recover from hearing the goddess speak. "Does he have so little time for his own friend in the hour of need?"

Aphrodite made no comment, not liking the answer she suspected. That Eros was distracted by a girl, a girl she would have seen sacrificed for taking worship she felt due only to her.

"If his friends have no time for him, then perhaps you should be the one to go to him." Xanthos replied. He was a pastoral god to the core, Olympus to him was a hell of ego and long standing grudges. Better to be amongst men who came and went with the steadiness of the tide and the seasons.

"Me?" Aphrodite asked, her dark eyes focusing on the shadowed Xanthos as she turned around to look at him.

"You have had your part to play in his loss," Zeus spoke and the other two looked at him the way one would immediately look toward the sound of thunder. "I am sure your mourning will move him."

"You speak rightly, Father." Xanthis said quietly. "There is … There is some comfort in knowing one's grief is shared." At first at seemed he might say more instead the rive god turned to leave.

"Wait!" Aphrodite called. "You are his grandfather why is it not you who will go to him?"

The river god froze, his back to the goddess. If he had been facing her she might have seen his eyes smarting as he breathed in trying to find the words. There had been a King once, one Xanthos had loved like a son, and that king had had a beautiful son of his own. And when two gods came to build Troy's walls it had been Xanthos who had suggested that the beautiful son be sent away … "One grief at a time, my Lady." And the beautiful son had been taken by a golden-haired god with eyes like the sky, in the form of an eagle. The river god turned to look back at Aphrodite, somewhat recovered. "Please, do for the boy what I could not."

Aphrodite made no answer, but her eyes were no longer narrowed at him. She seemed to understand something in Xanthos' words. She left gliding almost as she returned to the pillared room where Zeus has risen from his seat. "I take it I can leave this in your hands?" He asked and to his credit he did sound genuinely concerned.

Aphrodite nodded, "I will do what I can."

Zeus nodded in return and was gone was quickly as it takes lightning to flash across the sky.

* * *

"Get! Out!" Ganymede screamed hurling the sheets town from his bed when the love goddess came in. His room was in shreds and the stench of wine was everywhere. His hands looked almost as shredded as the room though Aphrodite couldn't help but doubt that wasn't the only source of the wine smell. The boy's breath certainly had it was well.

"I won't leave," Aphrodite told him doing her best to appear firm even if her voice wavered to see him like this.

The former mortal looked at her as if expecting her to say more, but when his gaze was met with only silence he hurled a vase at her which she dodged with the kind of grace that made one think she had known it was coming before he had even reached for it. Remaining silent, the goddess righted an over-turned chair and sat down.

"I hate you," Ganymede told her with the kind of firmness one only has when they're trying to convince themselves as well as the person they're talking too.

" … I know," Aphrodite answered quietly.

Ganymede turned as if looking up for something else to throw at her. his exposed back was a network of heavy scarring from where Zeus had grabbed a hold of him when an eagle. "Why couldn't any of you be better?" Ganymede asked, his shoulders shaking as he began to sob. Aphrodite rushed to his side, cradling him in his arms like the small boy he was.

"What do you mean, my darling?" Her voice the soft coo of a mother. "We're gods."

He said and tried to pull away. "_You're_ the gods not I."

"Ganymede." She said firmly and the boy stopped pulling away. "Look at your hands."

He breathed in deeply and looked. They were still cut and bleeding only it wasn't blood coming out of them only ichor, ichor which had taken the form of wine and water to reflect the boy's role as cupbearer.

"You are a god just as I." She said quietly.

"I didn't ask for this," He answered still staring at his hands.

"No. But you will have to live it, just as we both will have to with the loss of your family's city."

Ganymede squeezed his eyes shut and rested his head against Aphrodite's shoulder. He was a prince, he shouldn't cry like this but he couldn't help it. Crying into her arms like small child.

For a long time they remained that way, the goddess and the boy perhaps even for days. Of course it didn't matter, not for their kind. However in one thing they were both like mortals, this war would leave scars on them just like those on Ganymede's back. But they would learn to live with them, to disguise them. They would have to. The gods could not appear weak for they would have to appear cruel, just as time was.

And who is time crueler to but an immortal?


End file.
